Boy who took Lecent's life a ticking time bomb

Everyone believed that of her: Her middle school teacher, her family, her community. She had dreams of being a lawyer. She could have escaped Jamestown. She could have been somebody.

Instead, the life of the promising 14-year-old was cut short on a July morning in 2015 when she was accidentally shot by her friend, who’d acquired the illegal handgun just two days before.

At 13, he already had three criminal convictions including robbery and assault causing bodily harm. Only out on probation for two weeks, he’d quickly violated his terms by moving back to Jamestown and arming himself with a .40-calibre Smith & Wesson handgun.

For “protection,” said his lawyer. But he wasn’t supposed to be there at all.

Originally charged with manslaughter, he pleaded guilty last November to the lesser charge of criminal negligence causing death. Now the tall, lanky teen, looking older than his 15 years, was back in Finch Ave. court to be sentenced.

Sentenced by the very same judge who’d given him the probation back in 2015 that he violated within days. And while virtually everyone agrees the young offender remains a ticking time bomb, there is little anyone can do.

When he discharged that loaded firearm in his bedroom, he was four weeks shy of turning 14. Just a month later and the Crown could have sought an adult sentence. Instead, at 13, the maximum he can face under the Youth Criminal Justice Act is three years.

Considered at the “high end of the moderate risk scale,” he refuses to discuss the details of what happened that morning or how he got his hands on the gun. He’s also unwilling to deal with his mental health issues: He was sexually abused as a young child, saw the bodies of two shooting victims on his way to school in Grade 5, and has been diagnosed with depression and PTSD. While in closed custody, he was embroiled in constant violence.

He seems to have improved since moving to an open custody group home after pleading guilty — but his probation officer worries he has nowhere to go on his release. Despite many efforts, she couldn’t reach his mother and had to contact Children’s Aid. “There’s no viable plan in place. It’s troubling, it’s really troubling,” Travers said.

Added Crown Jim Cruess, “He can’t just be thrown back into the world. He has a long road to rehabilitation.”

So the prosecutors urged Justice Antonio Di Zio to keep the teen under strict supervision for as long as possible and that’s not much. The Crown asked for another six months in custody; His lawyer John Erickson called for three.

Erickson insisted his client is deeply remorseful, an assertion that drew derision from Ross’s many relatives who filled the courtroom.

Asked if he wanted to speak, he rose and turned to face Lecent’s mother, Alicia Jasquith. “I regret what happened. I wish it didn’t happen,” he said. “I understand that it’s my fault for what happened. I know there’s nothing I can say to make you feel better.”

As sincere as he seemed, Lecent’s aunt Taleza Johnson dismissed it as “just words.”

“That boy’s going to be out scot-free and he’s been in trouble 27 times while in custody,” she said. “Does that sound like someone who’s ready to be out in society?”

Not at all. He is a troubled, troubled kid and yet time is running out to help him thanks to the YCJA.

“I am not convinced he has progressed enough to be safely released into the community at this time,” the judge said. “I have only a remaining six-month window. I don’t know if that is enough, but I suspect that it may not be.”

How reassuring. With his hands so tied, Di Zio sentenced him to another six months in open custody, 90 days of community supervision and 258 days of probation. Counting pre-trial custody, it amounts to the three years allowed.

“Good luck,” the judge told him.

And good luck to the rest of us as well.

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Alicia Jasquith struggles to walk into the courtroom with the aid of a cane. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in September, grief and stress has quickly worsened her condition.

“Lecent was not only my daughter she was my friend. We supported each other,” she wrote in her victim impact statement. “Without her, our house is now a quiet and sad place.”

Lecent’s younger sister and brother would lock themselves in their room and cry for days. “This year for Christmas they prayed and asked God if they could have their sister back and for their mom to get better. I am the one left having to explain to them that she cannot come back to us.”

Now the boy who stole her daughter’s life will be free soon.

“Justice has not been served for Lecent and for our family. I am left picking up the pieces of our lives while you get to go home to your mother and to your family.”